


at one ment

by zihna



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canonical Character Death, Daemons, F/M, Gen, Pacific Rim Mini Bang, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:29:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zihna/pseuds/zihna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They're building you another Jaeger," Marshall Hansen says.  </p>
<p>Or, a snake and an otter walk into a Jaeger.  Mako's still waiting for the punchline.  (Or, Mako's daemon settled when she was fifteen years old, his scale's as sharp as Trespasser's and as blue as Onibaba's blood.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	at one ment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverfadingrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfadingrain/gifts).



> Okay so first off a major thanks to [Aubrey](http://kaijustomping.tumblr.com) for betaing and not letting me slack off on this; darling you are wonderful and I adore you to pieces. 
> 
> Second, an enormous thanks to my artist [tielan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan) who not only made a _stunning_ graphic but managed to do so while writing her own fic and doing art for another. Seriously, you rock and it was a pleasure working with you. 
> 
> Third, this can be read as a companion to my other pacrim/hdm fic "apolloyon," which is around here somewhere. Reading it isn't necessary for reading this, though. 
> 
> Fourth, about half the daemons' final forms came from Travis Beacham; the other half I wasn't fond of, so I chose daemons (or didn't, in Raleigh's case) myself. Daemon name meanings and symbolism can be found at the end! (Also, this fic runs with the idea presented in HDM that Dust is a powerful form of energy; here the neural bridge is powered by the Dust of the pilots' daemons.)

 

at one ment

 

“They’re building you another Jaeger,” Marshall Hansen says, [Ayla](http://ecologyadventure2.edublogs.org/files/2011/04/final-pic-1pdbpwi.jpg) settled on his knee. He looks tired today.  Mako can understand—they’re all tired.  It’s been a long few weeks. 

Michi curls around her shoulders, his head resting near her ear. 

Mako blinks at Ralgeigh.

Raleigh blinks Mako. 

“Uh,” Raleigh says.

“Another Jaeger,” Mako adds.

“There are no more kaiju,” Michi murmurs, to Mako and Raleigh’s Bara.  “Why do we need another Jaeger?”

“The UN seems to think it’s good for morale,” Marshall Hansen explains.  “A Jaeger patrolling the Pacific would put everyone at ease.  Especially since you two would be piloting it.”

Mako and Raleigh don’t need to share a glance to know what the other is thinking.  Michi shifts on Mako’s shoulders again, a bristle of excitement shuddering down his scales. 

“That is,” Ayla says, her voice rough, “if you two want to pilot, still.”

“Of course we do,” Mako and Raleigh say, almost perfectly in unison.   (Two weeks ago, it would have been perfect.  As Mako said; it’s been a long few weeks.)

Herc Hansen looks them up and down, Bara flickering from otter to bird to lizard on Raleigh’s shoulder, Michi with his scales poisoned green.

“Sure you do,” he says.

 

“Another Jaeger,” Bara says, wonderingly.  She’s curled against Mako’s throat, an ermine for now, slender and soft.  “Why?”

“Publicity,” Michi says.  Mako can feel Raleigh through him, the cut of his shoulders, his ribs, the thin scars down his side.  This is how they should be, tangled up together, legs and fingers and daemons.

(When she first met him, Mako didn’t think she’d end up sleeping with Raleigh Becket.  He hadn’t been what she’d expected; Bara, then still settled, hadn’t been nearly impressive as Yancy’s stag.  Her fur had been untidy, and she’d been small, and she didn’t look like she could power a Drift at all.

But then Michi had said to Sensei, _They aren’t what we expected,_ and Bara had said back, _Better or worse?_

Her green eyes, far from being offended, had been laughing.

Michi was smitten.)

“Do you wanna Drift again?”  Raleigh slurs when he’s tired; his voice gets thick and lazy, more a hum against Mako’s collarbone than anything else.

She smiles, tangles her free hand in his hair.  Keeps her eyes closed so she doesn’t see the green tinge to Michi’s scales, discoloring his vibrant Kaiju Blue.  “I miss it,” she admits.  The connection, the rush, the pulse—Newt has a pons, but Tendo won’t let them near it, calls it unsafe.

(His little [Sera](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Antillean_crested_hummingbird.jpg) had gone head to head with Darsha over it, actually; Newt apparently liked the Drift, and wanted to keep doing it; it was only Doctor Gottleib’s timely intervention, and his Binah’s teeth, that had resolved that little standoff.)

Mako misses Raleigh, and the Dust of their daemons; their Gipsy Danger moving around them, parting the sea.

“Is that a good idea?”

Mako’s eyes are still closed.  She won’t open them.  She doesn’t want to see Raleigh’s worry.  Against her throat Bara changes, soft fur becoming silk feathers. 

Michi hisses.

“Of course it is,” she says.  “Don’t you want it, too?”

Raleigh’s quiet for a minute, thumb trailing down Michi’s bristling spine.  Raleigh can soothe Michi like no one but Sensei; Mako’s daemon has always been a strange, standoffish creature—“Military upbringing,” he says, only a little dryly—always bristling at one thing or another.  The world’s expectations, the world’s derision, the scorn of other pilots, who thought a tiny little girl couldn’t possibly stand at their level.   

But Michi adores Raleigh.  Lets himself be calmed, be gentled, his toothy scales soothed by Raleigh’s hands.

It’s grounding, and it shouldn’t scare Mako like it does. 

Her copilot sighs, tucking deeper into her shoulder.  “Yeah,” he says, and Bara shifts again, a butterfly this time, her wings delicate green lace.  “Yeah, I do.”

 

The Hong Kong Shatterdome is quieter, these days.  Not because there are fewer people in it—if anything, there are more; engineers to build the new Jaeger, nurses and doctors, UN officials, military, reporters, foreign aid, politicos, the whole lot of them.  

They remind Mako of Hannibal Chau’s people.  Numerous and swarming, picking everything down to the bone. 

The Shatterdome is quieter because its pilots are gone.

The Wei Tang Triplets and their daemons, fox and heron and hawk.  Alexis and Sasha, the wolf and the bear.  Chuck Hansen with Lavi at his heels, barking derisive comments at passerby (though never Mako, not until the end.)

Sensei with [Polly](http://nationalzoo.si.edu/publications/zoogoer/2008/1/IMAGES/Amur_tiger.jpg) at his side, the air around them still and sure.

Mako misses them so much.

It’s different for Raleigh, she knows.  He respected them, all of them—even Chuck—but he didn’t _know_ them. 

Mako did.  She and Michi grew up on bases like these.  Jin and Hu taught Mako how to shoot a basketball; Cheung showed her tricks in the Kwoon, how to have Michi move like a heron, all sinew and grace.

Alexis and Sasha taught her how to stand up for herself.  Sasha knew what it was like to be a small woman in a field dominated by big, rough men; she showed Mako all the little ways to fight, how to become steel. 

Chuck grew up with Mako, in exactly the same way;  moving from base to base, spending more time with machines than people.  Michi and [Lavi](http://d3o47n6kn1r59u.cloudfront.net/images/dogbreeds/large/Bulldog.jpg) could—and did—argue about the benefits of analog versus digital power for hours.  The effectiveness of wing flaps, the necessary torque to kill a Cat III with one punch.

And Sensei, well. 

Michi curls deeper inside her jacket as they walk through the Shatterdome, his weight warm and steady.  He hates this too.

“Miss Mori!”  a reporter calls.  Evidently, the Danger logo on Mako’s back isn’t enough to keep the vultures away.

_Raleigh,_ she thinks.  (Ghost Drifting still isn’t talked about, but you don’t go into a Jaeger, turn your daemons to Dust, and come out of that separated.  A part of Raleigh, of Bara, is alive in Mako’s head.  This will always be so.) 

“Miss Mako Mori!”

She keeps walking.

“How do you feel about getting a new Jaeger?”  The reporter has a beady-eyed crow daemon, feathers lurid and glossy.

“Ignore him,” Michi hisses, sliding out of her jacket.  He shows the crow his fangs.  “Just keep walking.” 

“Miss Mori!”

_Really,_ she thinks, anger starting to twitch under her skin.  _Who do these people think they are?_ Coming into the Shatterdome just weeks after they lost everything?  Nearly lost the world?  If it hadn’t been for Sensei, and for her swords, and Raleigh’s fall—

“Why is your daemon changing color?”

Mako stops. 

“Sir,” she says, in a very calm, even voice.  “You should leave.”

The reporter grins.  “So you don’t like it?  It’s not voluntary?  Why is it happening?  What do you think it means?  Is it because you’ve killed all the kaiju?  Are you not living for revenge anymore?”

It’s Raleigh’s temper that makes her hit him, she tells herself later.  The Drift is strong, after all, and Raleigh’s impulsiveness, his occasional bursts, are catching. 

(If Michi pulls a few of the crow’s feathers, well.  What did he expect, angering a serpent?)

 

“You punched a UN reporter,” Marshall Hansen says, rubbing his forehead.  Ayla’s eyes are fixed on Michi, unwavering.  (The light makes the green buried in his scales even more vibrant; Mako pretends not to notice.)

“Slapped, actually,” Raleigh supplies.  Bara is on top of Mako’s head as a sparrow.  Raleigh, from what Mako can tell and feel and see, is both amused and concerned.  “Open palm.”

“You bitch slapped a UN reporter,” Ayla says.

Mako looks at Raleigh.  Raleigh nods, lips twitching. “Yes, sir,” Mako says.

“ _Why_?”

“He was being invasive and rude.”  Mako doesn’t regret it, really.  The reporter’s expression had been worth it.  His shocked, red face had fired some kind of vindictiveness in Mako, and had made Michi’s scales a little more brilliantly blue. 

“So you hit him.” 

Mako doesn’t say anything.

“And you let Michi bite his daemon.”

Raleigh muffles a laugh into his palm. 

_Helpful,_ Mako thinks at him.

“Do you understand what this looks like?”  the new Marshall demands.  “Ranger Mori—” He’s being formal now, which is not a good sign, and some of her resolve wavers—“the whole world is watching you.  You and Ranger Becket.  Now, you might not like it, but it’s happening.”

“Do you know what you two look like to them already?”  Ayla says.  She’s never been a particularly loud dameon—like Polly, she has an air about her, a steadfastness.  But she's angry now, or maybe just tired, maybe just guilty, her fur bristling. 

“What do we look like?”  Raleigh asks.  Bara returns to his shoulder, otter shaped again. Her fur is rich with streaks of amber. 

Ayla snorts.  “What do you think?  _You’re_ unsettled. Michi is changing color.  You look damaged.”

Raleigh stiffens. 

He doesn’t talk about it, Bara unsettling.  They had gone into Operation Pitfall settled, [Bara](http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=D2oQ38GnjYFSkM&tbnid=p3dMk0PemAAxOM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redbubble.com%2Fpeople%2Fmedicinedawg73%2Fworks%2F4633132-african-spotted-necked-otter&ei=6eViUre1IIe44APD2oG4Dw&bvm=bv.54934254,d.dmg&psig=AFQjCNGgmtHNItWoTkjAuabxjPvwFpGxAQ&ust=1382299477481445) as an otter, slim but fast, and unorthodox, and sly.  Green eyes and amber-streaked fur.  She had turned to Dust, and then she had powered the Drift on her own, driving Gipsy with the force of her heart and soul. 

When Mako had pulled Raleigh out of his pod, Bara had still been Dust, scattered across Raleigh’s drivesuit.

They had been dead. 

Michi had wailed.  Mourned and howled and screamed, like he hadn’t since he was a little daemon, and then Bara had come back.

As a bird.

And then a snake, and a dog, and a cat, and an otter.  A bat when she talked to Newt’s Darsha about the Anteverse.  A fox for a time, and then a doe at the funerals. 

Something about that journey into the Overseer’s world had unsettled Bara, and no matter how she tried—and she did try, Mako knew, even though Raleigh pretended like it wasn’t a big deal, like he wasn’t scared and confused—she could not settle again.

As for Michi, well. 

“We aren’t damaged,” Mako says defensively. 

Marshall Hansen snorts.  “Yes you are,” he says.  “We all are.  We’ve come through—”  He stops, hand tangling compulsively in Ayla’s coarse fur.  Is he thinking of his son?  “More than anyone in the world can understand.  But we still have to put up appearances.”

“Michi changing color shouldn’t be anyone’s business but Mako and Michi’s,” Raleigh snaps.  Bara glares at Herc from his shoulder.  “That reporter was out of line—”

“If you ever want to Drift together again, you need to sort this out,” the Marshall says, bluntly.

Mako and Raleigh trade glances.  Michi’s scales start bristling again, the green fading almost entirely to that strange, otherworldly blue. 

“What do you mean?”  Raleigh asks warily.

“They’re not going to give you the new Jaeger if they think you’re nuts,” Ayla says.  Her face is hard but her eyes are soft.  “They’ll give it to some other pilots, there are still a few around.  They’re not going to sink billions of dollars into a Jaeger and give it to people they think are unstable.”

“They let us back in Gipsy.”  Bara’s fur is bristling too, making her look twice her size.  Her eyes flash, more for Michi’s sake than her own.  (Though, Mako thinks, she probably does not like being called damaged.)

“We were at war.  There wasn’t a choice.  And Stack—Marshall Pentecost argued for you.”

“You’re not going to argue for us?”

Marshall Hansen looks at them evenly, his badger daemon stout and steady.  “Of course I will,” he says.  “But I’m not Stacker.”

_I’m not going to win,_ he’s saying.  He’s too new at this job, minted Marshall barely a few weeks ago.  Already he’s fought so hard, for retrieval crews to brave the Kaiju Blue to get the Kaidonovskys, the Wei triplets so the PPDC has something to bury.  (There had been nothing left of his son, not even a few specks of Lavi’s Dust.)  To keep the Hong Kong Shatterdome running.  For funding, for the PPDC’s very existence.

A sudden sort of fear settles in Mako’s throat.  She needs to pilot again.  She needs to Drift.  It’s what she trained for, what kept her going; Michi’s scales were blue as a reminder, Onibaba’s blood imprinted on his settled shape. 

Kaiju and Jaegers shaped Mako.  They were her forge, her crucible.  She folded and refolded herself so many times, forged herself a daemon in armor, overcame everything, to be a pilot.  To avenge her family.

She can’t be anything else.

“We’re not unstable,” Michi says, sensing her fear.  He curls around her arms, her shoulders.  A Kaiju Blue embrace. 

The Marshall sighs, and Raleigh brushes Mako’s fingers.  Bara shifts again, a small creature that Mako can’t see before she dives under his sweater, against his chest.  “It’s not me you have to convince.”

“So how do we convince them?”  Raleigh asks.

Ayla snorts.  “Hell if we know.  Stop slapping reporters, for one thing.  The rest you’ll have to figure out for yourselves.”

Raleigh looks at Mako, smiling slightly.  “Wanna slap me instead?”

 

The Kwoon is a familiar rhythm, for all their disconnection.  Mako’s feet know where to go, her hands know how to move, Michi on her shoulders, swaying in time with the clacking hanbo.

It’s _relaxing._

She knows what they must look like to outsiders, Mako with her kaiju-colored daemon, Raleigh with his constantly in flux, going for each other like they want to spill blood.  

But she meets Raleigh’s eyes across their crossed hanbo, and he grins at her.  She grins back, lunge, counterstrike, and feels more than sees Michi wind his way down to her wrist. 

Bara’s shifting again, fox heron otter cat, different every blow.  Michi strains for her.

_Mako,_ he says, his scales fluttering.  _Mako, I want—_

_Don’t break the rhythm,_ she tells him.  She doesn’t want to break the rhythm, not when they haven’t Drifted properly in weeks. Tendo’s killing them with this ban on Newt’s bastardized pons.  He won’t even let them near the other prototypes. 

All Mako wants is to be with Raleigh in the Drift again, their daemons Dust draped around them, driving Gipsy out to sea. 

This is as close as they can get.

Bara even looks close to Dust; she’s shifting so fast her edges are blurry, golden and undefined.  

Raleigh’s strike catches her by surprise; he only just taps her, not hard enough to even bruise, but still, it’s a point and she falters, the rhythm stuttering.

_Focus,_ she tells herself.  _Remember what Cheung taught us.  Move like a heron._

“Three-two,” Raleigh teases, breathless. 

Mako grins, feeling Michi gather himself.  Strike, block.  _Strike._ That’s all Michi, uncoiling with a viper’s precision; her hanbo sings and Raleigh stumbles, Bara nearly toppling from his shoulders.  “Three-three,” she says, triumphant.

Bara laughs.  She’s an otter again, holding her shape for a second, two, five, ten.  Block, parry.  “Gotta do better than that!”  she laughs, and Raleigh’s laughing with her too. 

Michi tightens around Mako’s wrists, straining for them.  He wants. 

Strike, counterstrike, strike, counterstrike, strike—

Bara stutters, body convalescing; for a moment she’s huge, something with four legs and broad shoulders and not Bara at all.  Raleigh goes down underneath her, can’t bring his hanbo up fast enough. 

It’s too late for Mako to stop.

“Ow,” Raleigh says thickly, sitting down heavily. 

“Are you alright?”  Mako drops her hanbo, Michi fleeing back to her shoulders.  She crouches beside her copilot, gently pries his hands away from his face.  Bara whines, a small yellow fox, licks the blood off his fingers.

Raleigh smiles thickly, a bruise already blooming under his eyes.  “Three-four,” he says.  “I think you broke my nose.”

 

Marshall Hansen almost manages to duplicate her father’s _look,_ eyebrows rising over the rims of his glasses.  He’s missing Sensei’s air of complete, steady authority, though, and Polly’s rolling strength.  Marshall Hansen is still unsettled in his new role.  He doesn’t fit.

_There’s a lot of that going around,_ she thinks. 

“You broke Raleigh’s nose?”  Marshall Hansen repeats, disbelieving. 

“We were in the Kwoon,” she says, by way of answer. 

Marshall Hansen’s forehead crinkles. “You were that out of alignment?”

Michi mutters something unintelligible, slipping into Mako’s jacket. 

_Don’t sulk,_ she thinks.  _It’s unprofessional._

The new Marshall sighs.  His hand hasn’t left his daemon’s back.  Ayla’s eyes are dark, shoulders hunched.  Mako feels a stab of empathy.  “I told you what would happen if you couldn’t fix this disconnection you have,” he says.

Mako nods.  “You did,” she agrees.

“They won’t let you pilot the Jaeger, Mako.  They won’t let you in one ever again.  They’re only building the one.  This is your _last chanCe._ Do you understand that?”

_Last chance at what?_ She wants to ask. 

(The traitorous part of her mind whispers, _Of getting Michi back to normal?_ )

Michi feels that thought and recoils. 

Instead, Mako straightens her spine.  “I understand,” she says.

 

Bara is in a songbird’s shape when Raleigh comes to see her.  His nose is taped, an impressive bruise forming a mask around his eyes.

“Look,” Bara says, when she sees Mako’s stricken face.  She flutters into a raccoon dog’s body, grinning widely.  “We match!”

It’s Raleigh’s smile that makes her laugh, clapping a hand over her mouth.

“That’s not funny,” she says, letting Raleigh into her room.  (He, predictably, makes a beeline for her bed, flopping down with a happy sigh.)  “We could have seriously hurt you.”

“It is a little funny,” Michi admits.

“At least one of you has a sense of humor,” Bara says with a disdainful sniff, flicking into a cat, languid limbs and glittering green eyes.

Mako sighs, nudging Raleigh’s legs out of the way so she can join him, tucking against his side.  She likes this, the solidity of him, the comfort.  Raleigh isn’t exactly a stable man, but he’s stable enough.  Especially for someone like Mako.

_Always in transit,_ she thinks.  “I am sorry,” she says.  “I didn’t mean to hit you.”

Raleigh smiles.  “It wasn’t your fault.  It happens.”

Bara mutters something and Raleigh rests a hand on her head.  To Mako, it looks like a warning.

“You’re crazy, you know,” she says.  

He smiles at her.  “Yeah, I know,” he laughs.  “So are you.”

 

They make quite a pair, Mako and Michi.  He settled when she was fourteen or fifteen, a few years after Sensei adopted her.  The blue was a given.  He’d hardly stopped wearing the color since Onibaba.  Blue jays, blue songbirds, blue lizards, once a cat the color of a crow’s wing, blue shining through every time he moved.

“What does it mean?”  she’d asked him.  “Why?”

People had looked at her strangely, when he settled.  Most everyone wanted to forget the kaiju, and the blood, and the dead and the dying and the world coming to an end.  They didn’t like a daemon like Michi.  A daemon that threw the end of the world in their faces. 

Mako had been terrified that Sensei wouldn’t let her into the Academy because of it.  A girl with a kaiju-colored daemon, pilot a Jaeger? 

But he had understood.  Sensei and Polly had understood.  No one else.  Not even Tamsin, who loved Mako like a sister, who let Michi ride around on Nicky’s weak back. 

Polly had taken one look at Michi, in his newly-settled skin, and said, “For your family?”

And Mako had nodded.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Michi says, coiled up next to Mako.  His scales are greener than ever, shot through with amber and brown now, ripples of gold.

Mako woke up to him like this.  Raleigh hadn’t seen, or hadn’t noticed; he was still sleeping, and Mako hadn’t wanted to bother him.

“You’re _changing_ ,” she hisses.  “You aren’t supposed to be changing, we’re not Drifting anymore, you aren’t turning into an otter like Bara—”

“I am what I am!”  Michi fires back.  “You never had a problem before—”

“Because I knew what you were before,” Mako says.  “I knew what you meant.”  _I am supposed to be a Jaeger pilot._

“We can still be pilots—”

“Not if you keep changing,” she murmurs.  “Michi, I don’t know—I don’t know what you _mean_ anymore.”  _I don’t know what to do,_ she means. 

It’s been a long time coming, really. 

The kaiju are gone.  The Breach is closed.  The Anteverse, if it wasn’t completely destroyed, doesn’t have much left in terms of invasion forces. 

Mako and Raleigh saved the world.

At the cost, it would seem, of their souls.

“Sensei knew,” Michi says miserably.  “He knew this would happen, didn’t he?”

It’s a faint memory, but when Sensei came out of Coyote Tango that day, Onibaba at his feet, Polly had wings.  Little ones, but Mako remembers them clearly.  They had been Nikolas’s wings.  She’d seen them again when she met Tamsin Seiver. 

In the Drift, two daemons were one.  It was their Dust, thOse Rusakov particles that no one but Newt and Darsha and Herman and Binah really understood, that made the neural bridge possible.  After such close entanglement, of course there would be some bleed over. 

Raleigh talked about Bara carrying horns around for a week after one Drift, and Yancy’s stag sprouting claws. 

Of course Michi would brown around the edges a little bit, get some gold in his scales, just like Bara—had things gone normally—should’ve come out of the Drift with blue. 

But it hadn’t worked like that.  Bara came out unsettled and Michi was, and Michi is—

Mako’s daemon hisses, wounded.   “I am what I am,” he says again.  “I’m not changing because I _want_ to, Mako.”

“Why are you changing, then?”

Michi looks at her with his solemn gray eyes, the green in his scales even more vibrant now, emerald winning out against sapphire.

It terrifies her.

“You know why,” he says.

 

“Mako,” Raleigh says, coming to sit beside her. 

She doesn’t know why she’s out here, feet dangling over the edge.  Gipsy Danger is gone.  Her space in the Shatterdome is empty, hanging wires, abandoned scaffolding.  Marshall Hansen told her they’re building the new Jaeger in Australia, out of the bones of a Mark IV.  They’ll fit her like a Mark V, he’d promised.

Mako didn’t particularly care.  Michi was more green than blue, now.  They wouldn’t be allowed in that Jaeger.

“Raleigh,” she says, letting him sit.  His nose is still taped.  Bara’s on his shoulder again, otter-shaped.  She looks good in it, comfortable.  Mako wishes that she would settle again; Raleigh would be calmer, more at ease.

(He hides it well, but he’s just as afraid of losing this Jaeger as Mako is.  He too lost his solid ground.  He doesn’t fit anymore.)

He’s quiet for a minute, concern across his face, in the slant of Bara’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

She smiles.  “I miss my father,” she says.  Michi leaves her, sliding into Raleigh’s sweater, flush against his skin.  “I miss him very much.”

Raleigh nods.

“He would know what to do.  Polly—”

Her copilot grabs her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.  “I know,” he says.  “Mako.  I have an idea.”

She blinks at him, nonplussed.  For once she can’t tell what he’s thinking; usually he makes an effort to be open to her, him and Bara both.

But they’re closed off.

“It’s, uh, not technically Marshall Hansen-approved,” he warns her.

Mako tilts her head.  _Michi?_

_Has he led us astray yet?_ He says wryly.

Mako lets Raleigh pull her up, away from the empty space where their Gipsy Danger stood.  “Show me,” she says.

 

“This isn’t the kind of fancy Drift you’re used to,” [Darsha](http://animalvista.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Giant-golden-crowned-flying-fox-2.jpg) says warningly, flapping around Newt’s head.  The lab is half-dark, half-blindingly bright; Darsha keeps flying into Doctor Gottleib’s section and squealing in anger and pain.

[Binah](http://www.google.com/imgres?biw=1366&bih=638&tbm=isch&tbnid=zFr9qdm6WLmx8M:&imgrefurl=http://funnycatwallpapers.com/siamese-cats-picture-and-wallpaper.html&docid=TeLbgGBPxHwzUM&imgurl=http://funnycatwallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/siamese-cats-picture-2.jpg&w=1024&h=768&ei=7-RiUuDeO-_F4APv44Fw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:45,s:0,i:231&iact=rc&page=3&tbnh=168&tbnw=204&start=36&ndsp=24&tx=76&ty=72), Doctor Gottleib’s daemon, keeps preening disdainfully. 

“It’s rough and messy and not exactly pleasant,” Newt agrees.

“Quite horrible, actually,” Doctor Gottleib says.

Binah keeps grooming herself.

Bara snorts, takes a playful swipe at Darsha.  The bat daemon squeaks indignantly. 

“We can handle it,” Raleigh says.  “I like it rough, and Mako here is made of some tough stuff.”

Newt looks dubious, Darsha landing to cling to his collar, but he helps them get set up anyway, setting the pons on Mako’s head.  It’s an awkward, heavy device, nothing like an actual Jaeger’s pons, but it’ll do, Mako supposes.

Michi drapes himself around her neck, comfortingly.  He’s still greener than he is blue. 

“You’re sure about this?”  Doctor Gottleib says.

Raleigh gives him the thumbs up, which earns him a blank look.

Mako nods. “Yes,” she says, already excited, more excited than she’s been since her father died.  She’s going to Drift again.  Michi is green and Bara’s unsettled but it doesn’t matter, they’re _Drifting_ again. 

“Don’t tell Tendo,” Bara says jokingly, as Newt begins the sequence. 

“Five,” Newt intones loudly, “four, three, two—”

“Sera’s going to skin us,” Michi mutters, “turn me into a pair of boots—”

“One,” says Darsha, and the world explodes into the blue-white drift, Michi bursting into Dust at Mako’s throat.

 

Sensei, _is the first thing Mako thinks._ Sensei Onibaba Slattern underwater, theBreachtheBreachtheBreach, Raleigh, theBreach—

_And Raleigh is beside her, she can feel him, his usual steadiness, earth and water.  Michi lives around her, inside her.  Bara’s warm affectionate presence pulses in her heart.  They are alive in the Drift, and there’s Onibaba, there’s Slattern, there’s Sensei and his voice is dim—_

Mako, _Raleigh thinks, and sends her a burst of warmth.  He and Yancy in the snow, the old memory.  Snowballs and tackling each other, playing in the woods._ Stay with me, Mako.

I’m here, _she thinks, and so she is.  She is with Raleigh and Raleigh is with her; this is the Drift; their daemons are humming, perfectly in tune.  The Drift is strong._

Strong, _Mako thinks._ Rawer. 

You’re here, _Raleigh says, and there’s that grounding again._ I’m here. 

I know.

He’s here. 

_And there’s movement in the Drift, a stirring.  Dust that is not Michi-Bara, not Mako’s daemon; Dust that is a stag, magnificent, noble.  Yancy’s voice,_ Don’t get cocky, kid.  _Warm.  Bara laughing, crying.  Dust._

_More motion in the Drift, and then Apollonia is alive again, standing in front of Mako like she never died.  Her eyes are huge and amber and kind._

Miss Mori, _she says, Sensei’s voice laid over hers._

Sensei, _she whispers,_ help me.  I don’t know what to do. 

_Polly’s tail twitches, and she’s walking away, beside Yancy’s stag._

No, _Mako cries, and Raleigh echoes her,_ don’t go.  Don’t leave us. 

_There’s no use running in the Drift, there’s nowhere to go, it’s a metaphysical space, but Mako tries anyway.  Dust yawns between her and Polly, and Sensei’s warmth is leaving—_

My child, _Sensei says._ My child, _and he’s her father, too, her birth father, taking her hands, showing her how to shape a sword._

You cannot force the metal, _he is saying.  An old lesson, half-remembered.  Raleigh has a hand in hers.  Anchoring her.  Bara whispers in her heart, tangles in Michi, doesn’t let go._

The sword will be what it will be. 

_Mako remembers being confused._ But what if it comes out wrong?  _She had asked._

_Her father had smiled, and she sees him now.  Sensei is smilling too, and Polly, and Yancy’s stag._ It cannot be wrong.  It is what it is.  You can still swing a sword, even if it looks different from its brothers and sisters.  It must be swung differently, is all.

_Sensei’s voice, now._ I love you, _he’s saying. Polly too.  Raleigh loves Mako anyway, she knows it, can feel it.  So much love in this Drift._

Raleigh, _she says, squeezing his hand.  He did this for her.  This Drift won’t help Bara settle again.  He did this for her._ You didn’t have to.

‘course I did.  _The Drift is ending; their ghosts are fading, Dust breaking apart, forming solid wholes again._ You’d do the same for me.  One of us needs to be stable, right?

_Mako smiles._ Right.

They’re building their new Jaeger in Australia.  Mako and Raleigh go a few months into her development; she’s not more than bones right now, but there’s enough of her to see what she might look like, to get a feel for her.

Marshall Hansen lets them go reluctantly.  Ayla gives Mako a stern speech.  Raleigh gets off without one, which is an interesting turn of events.

Bara is still unsettled.  She is an otter more often now, but she changes at least twice a day.  Raleigh seems to have accepted it.  He’s adaptable like that.

[Michi](http://i.imgur.com/T5QmjkJ.jpg) still carries undercurrents of blue, but most of him is green now, green and amber and black.  Kaiju blood, the sea, Bara’s fur, drivesuit circuits.  Mako’s actually amazed at how much he managed to fit in; when they came out of that bastardized Drift (after Tendo had stopped yelling at them), he’d changed in a matter of days.

By the end of the week, Mako’s Michi was no longer the color of Onibaba’s blood.

That, she thinks, is alright.  She is no longer the sword to avenge her family, just as Raleigh is no longer just Yancy Becket’s little brother, good because he was Drift compatible with the right people.

“We saved the world,” Michi says, a little smugly. “We can be whatever we want to be.” 

There’s a petition to name the new Jaeger Gipsy Danger II.  (Apparently it’s a common trend in naming boats.) 

People want things to stay the same.

Mako’s holding Bara in her hand when they see the Jaeger for the first time, and she takes her breath away.

“Nothing ever stays the same,” Bara says. 

“So what’re we gonna call her?”  Raleigh reaches out for Mako, for Michi.  He’s wide-eyed, smitten with this new Jaeger already.  Mako’s going to find him cooing sweet nothings at her before the week is out. 

“Apollonia Green,” Mako says, tangling her fingers in Bara’s warm fur.  “That’s what we’ll call her.”

Raleigh smiles, lets Michi drape himself over his shoulders, his scales checkered amber and emerald and brown.  “Apollonia Green,” he says, trying it out.  She likes the way he says it.  Raleigh smiles, radiantly.  “I like the sound of that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Michi: "pathway," Japanese. An African bush viper. Serpents are considered powerful symbols of resurrection, feminine power, intuition, and creativity. A serpent eating its own tail is the symbol of both destruction and atonement, or "at-one-ment." 
> 
> Bara: "to choose," Hebrew. Unsettled, originally an African spotted-neck otter. Otters are symbols of unorthodox or unconventional thinking, perception and intuition, sympathy, honesty, and friendship. Otters are one of the few species of mustelidae to live in social groups. 
> 
> Apollonia: Greek, "from Apollo." Apollo is the Greek god of the sun; Apollonia was also a third-century Christian martyr. A Malayan tiger. Tigers are often associated with fire, solar energy, determination, anger, and courage. 
> 
> Ayla: "oak tree, terebinth tree," Hebrew. An American badger. Badgers are symbolically linked with earth and are thus considered spirits of strength, solidity, dependability, and determination. Badgers are unyielding.
> 
> Lavi: "lion," Hebrew. An English bulldog. Dogs are symbolic of loyalty, steadfastness, and determination. Dogs can also represent stubbornness and earth. 
> 
> Darsha: "to see, to perceive, to have vision," Hindi. A Giant golden-crowned flying fox. ats are symbols of dreams and journeying, as well as enlightenment; they travel from the depths of the earth out into the open air every night. They are also symbols of exploring the underworld. 
> 
> Binah: "mystical understanding," Hebrew. A Siamese cat. Cats are symbols of astuteness, cleverness, watchfulness, and intelligence, but also solitude and secrecy. They are often considered messengers to and from the underworld.


End file.
